GROWING PUBLIC INTEREST IN RIVERSIMPLE AND THE RASA

Talking to the public about Riversimple and showing the Rasa at events is an important part of growing the Riversimple movement. We reported last summer about our hectic public activities to June last year, and the second half of last year saw no let-up.

In August, we joined the Hydrogen Hub in Swindon for a day dedicated to the local hydrogen economy. There is a refuelling point there and over 30 organisations are working together to develop projects to deploy hydrogen and fuel cell technology.

Our progress also drew a very prominent visitor to our HQ – Lord Bamford, Chairman of JCB, along with a team of engineers, dropped by in a helicopter much to the amusement of golfers on the local green!

In September Riversimple founder Hugo Spowers gave a lecture at the Institute of Engineering and Technology and we presented at the Unreasonable World Impact Forum at the Royal Institution in London.

In October, Hugo was a panel speaker at the Tory Party Conference in Manchester chaired by Jesse Norman, Undersecretary for Roads and Transport, on the subject of decarbonising road transport and he spoke again at the prestigious Wired Energy Conference in London, while senior engineer Dr Stafford Lloyd spoke at a House of Lords committee meeting on zero emission vehicles.

In November, while the Rasa went to the Advanced Engineering Show at the NEC and then on to Brussels to support the annual review of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), Hugo spoke in Bratislava at the UNIDO Conference on the Circular Economy for the automotive industry and

Stafford went to Uruguay to present at the first Circular Economy Forum for Latin America which was subsequently featured in the Disruptive Innovation Festival – Riversimple is an Emerging Innovator Member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s CE100.

In December, Hugo gave the inaugural David Mackay Memorial Lecture to the Energy, Environment and Sustainability Group of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and addressed the Innovation team of the Welsh Government the day afterwards.

But maybe powertrain architect Dr Nico Sergent had the sunniest December speaking engagement, at the Energaïa conference in Montpelier in the Occitane region of France.

In the meantime, back at Riversimple HQ, the workshop and R&D teams have been busy fine-tuning the software and modifying some of the hardware for the build of new Beta cars. The new carbon fibrechassis includes front and rear subframes and is 20 kgs lighter in total. More on the technology next time.

May 2018 be a Happy Year for all enterprises focused on eliminating negative environmental impact.